PHP.net: A Tourist's Guide

Everyone knows the php.net site. All of us went there sooner or later,
and will keep going back there. This is the central reference point for PHP
users, and there is a wealth of information there. Not all of it is obvious.
Come with me, I'll show you.

This is the home of the download page, for
everyone to get the latest version of the PHP source code and binaries
for Windows. The current and next-to-current versions are available there.
(There is also a PHP Museum, which has
all of the source distributions since June 1996.)

The next most visited section is the documentation.
The documentation is translated into twelve different languages, and is
available in a variety of different formats.
Users are able to read notes on the documentation left by other users, and
contribute their own notes. The documentation is a real community project
by itself!

The support page has all the directions to a wealth
of resources both inside and outside of PHP.net. The community has built a huge
network of knowledge bases, PHP user groups, and training sessions where anyone
can have his or her questions answered. Non-English-speaking users also get a
large share of attention.

This is where speakers at various PHP-related conferences keep their slides.
It covers all sorts of topics, from the famous 'Rasmus' introduction to PHP to
the latest 'PHP system administration', through PEAR and advanced topics. All
those slides are available within the PHP slide application.

news.php.net is the web interface to the PHP mailing lists. If you're not
subscribed to the mailing lists, but you still want to keep in touch regularly,
this is your place. An infinite pile of fresh news and trends of PHP. You can
also point your news reader at the NNTP server at news.php.net to follow the
lists.

PEAR is the next revolution in PHP. This repository is bringing higher level
programming to PHP. PEAR is a framework and distribution system for reusable
PHP components. It eases installation by bringing an automated wizard, and
packing the strength and experience of PHP users into a nicely organised OOP
library.

PECL is a repository for PHP Extensions, providing a directory of all known
extensions and hosting facilities for downloading and development of PHP
extensions.
The packaging and distribution system used by PECL is shared with
its sister, PEAR.

PhD O.E. is an online documentation editor. Its a great tool for users that are looking for a way to get into
contributing to PHP.net. Anonymous users can submit patches through the editor, while karma holders can approve
and commit changes directly from the editor.

The documentation developmental server is a PHP mirror that contains upcoming
releases of the PHP documentation before it's pushed out to the mirrors.
Documentation changes, such as layout, is tested here (with feedback requested)
before being made official. Documentation is built here four times a day.

The Quality Assurance team is one of the most important pieces of the PHP
project, protecting users from bugs. It is gathered around the QA mailing list,
and this site allows anyone to provide tests and experience to the release
process.

The PHP project is organized with a Git server, and this website is the web
interface to it. There you can browse the history (and latest versions) of the
source code for all of the PHP projects. For example, the
php-src module is
the repository for the source code to the latest version of PHP itself.
Checking out the source code can be done anonymously.

The Git repository is also mirrored on
GitHub, for those who would
prefer to use GitHub's interface.

Using OpenGrok is another option to view the
source code, and it offers additional features like search and cross referencing.

The PHP project used to be organized under the SVN revision control system, but
migrated to Git (see above) in March 2012.
The old SVN repository is archived here for posterity, however it's still used for
i.e. documentation files.

The PHP project used to be organized under the CVS revision control system, but
migrated to Subversion (see above) in July of 2009.
The old CVS repository is archived here for posterity. It was formerly named
cvs.php.net, but that now redirects to the SVN repository. This is not available
via HTTP.

OpenGrok allows
search and viewing of the PHP source code in an intelligent manner. Several branches
and sub-projects are listed.
Any time an important macro or function is detected within the code, it is linked
to its definition, and all its usage locations. This will help you build your code
and understand the PHP source.

The name "lxr" exists as it was once based on the "Linux Cross Reference", but
changed over to OpenGrok sometime in 2010.

This web site is the home of the PHP-GTK project, which allows PHP to be
used to build graphical interfaces, with slick interface and highly
interactive content. You'll find the downloads and docs here,
and the latest news from the project.

This site is dedicated to automatic PHP code coverage testing. On a regular
basis current Git snapshots are being build and tested on this machine. After
all tests are done the results are visualized along with a code coverage
analysis.

Home of the official PHP wiki, this site contains information related to php.net like
RFCs, GSOC information, and TODO files. Most every aspect of the PHP project
has a wiki section and everyone is able to apply for wiki commit access.